Walt Disney World is supposed to be a place where everybody gets to have fun. It's designed so that any person of any age gets to feel like a kid. This should include the cast members who work there, and yet, all too frequently it's the people who try to make Walt Disney World magic for the rest of us who have the magic ruined. Such as when a guest recently groped one of the cast members playing a princess.
The incident took place earlier this week at Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom in the area of Fantasyland known as the Grotto. While the princess the cast member was dressed as was not revealed, the area is traditionally home to a Meet-And-Greet for The Little Mermaid's Ariel.
Brian Sherman, a 51-year-old resident of Orlando is the man who has been charged with battery following the incident. Sherman posed for a photo with the princess and his wife, by putting his arm around the princess, making her uncomfortable. When it was requested by other case members that he try a different pose, he allegedly lowered his hand and cupped the woman's breast.
The Disney PhotoPass photographer was thinking fairly quickly, and took pictures of the guests, and those photos were then used to identify Sherman, leading to his arrest.
The cast member who was groped was left shaking and crying by the incident, and the Meet-And-Greet was immediately closed. She has already told authorities that she wants to press charges and is willing to testify.
According to Orlando's Spectrum 13 News, Brian Sherman is a registered sex offender, who was previously convicted of sexual battery on a person under the age of 12. On the plus side, nobody will have to deal with this guy at Walt Disney World again. Regardless of whether or not he goes to jail you can bet he'll be placed on the permanent trespass list for Walt Disney World.
I would ask what would possess a person to do something like this, but there's no answer that would make any sense. I can only hope the young woman in the princess costume wasn't too terrified by the entire experience. The cast members who play the part of Disney characters are some of the most popular experiences in the park, for both the young and the old, and most of the adults aren't like this.
While this type of behavior is never acceptable, it's easy to be even more shocked by it because it's Walt Disney World. It should be a place where everybody is happy and behaving well, and yet we end up seeing some of the worst of humanity at Disney parks. It's supposed to vacation. It's supposed to be fun. Can the terrible people just stop, or at least stay away?
